Aesthetic Medicine Regulation Singapore —
Who Checks What

No single body oversees an aesthetic treatment from start to finish. Each part of it falls to a different public body, and each part can be checked separately.

Registration with the SMC is the starting point. The register is public, so you can confirm that a doctor is registered before you book. How to search it, and what an entry shows, is set out in how to choose an aesthetic doctor.

Registration on its own does not say which aesthetic procedures a doctor may perform. That is the job of the SMC's Guidelines on Aesthetic Practices for Doctors, which set out the approved procedures. For certain procedures, a doctor without the relevant experience must obtain a Certificate of Competence through an SMC-accredited course. Doctors on conditional registration may not practise aesthetic medicine.

In Singapore, aesthetic medicine is not one of the recognised specialties, so no doctor holds specialist accreditation in it, whatever a clinic's website says. What the title aesthetic physician does and does not mean is explained on aesthetic physician in Singapore.

The HSA regulates the tools of aesthetic medicine: medical devices such as lasers, radiofrequency and ultrasound platforms and dermal fillers, and therapeutic products such as botulinum toxin. Registration concerns the product itself: that it may be supplied in Singapore for its stated use.

It is reasonable to ask which device or product is planned for you, and whether it is registered where you are being treated. Keep the product name, the area and the date in your records; that detail matters if anything ever needs correcting.

Registration does not tell you whether a treatment suits your face or skin, or whether it is being used for the right problem. That depends on the examination and on the person using it.

Singapore's healthcare advertising rules and the SMC Ethical Code restrict what a clinic may publish: patient endorsements, paired result photographs, inducements to book and superlative claims are all restricted.

That shapes every page on this site. Atelier does not publish fees: they are quoted in writing after an assessment, as how we quote explains. Pages describe how a treatment works and what it cannot do, rather than showing results. Where a page discusses a device from a manufacturer with which Dr Sin Yong holds a Key Opinion Leader appointment, that appointment is disclosed on the page.

When you compare clinics, a page that dangles a deal, quotes patient praise or ranks itself above others is a reason for more questions, not fewer.